


Through Paradise

by lionsenpai



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/F, F/M, FFXIII-2 is not a thing and will never be a thing, Fix It Fic, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, No one just wakes up from crystal stasis, longfic, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/pseuds/lionsenpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Cocoon's fall, Lightning is chasing down leads that may as well be shadows as she searches for a way to release her friends from crystal stasis. But the land is broken and infested with twisted creatures, and even Lightning knows the answers she craves may have disappeared in the five hundred years since they last existed. And unbeknownst to her, forces converge on Gran Pulse that threaten to destroy everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Paradise

“Meera, you didn’t have to come.”

“And leave you to die--or worse, fail and become one of those cie’th?” She scoffed. She took Saul by the shoulder and yanked him up to her side, hugging him close. “I couldn’t leave my little brother to such a fate!”

Saul wiggled out of her grasp, complaining, “Stop it!”

Meera laughed and let him go, resuming her quick pace along the craggy pass. Saul pulled at the orange and gold drape around his neck and fell into step behind her once more, his head hung low. He kept his sight on the inky black mark on his open palm, only occasionally looking up at Meera’s back.

 _I could have painted it on and it wouldn’t have mattered._ He couldn’t help the bitterness of his thoughts. _Some help it was in proving me to the clan._

He had thought perhaps the way to make himself something more than _Meera’s little brother_ would have been to offer himself up to the fal’Cie, to embark on its impossible mission and solve the mystery of its focus. Single handedly, he would end the plague upon the land, stop the needless conversion of men to cie’th, and become a legend among his people, and none of it would have anything to do with _Meera_.

Or that was what he’d prayed for.

“Come on, little brother. It’s down this way,” Meera told him happily, swinging her spear toward the ravine dropping hundreds of feet. Never had they looked any more different, Saul with his hunched back and dragging step and Meera with her driven exuberance.

Their clan, the Ida, was known for its fine hunters, its competence with the whip and spear, and its dark skin and darker hair. In those respects, Saul barely passed as a clansman.

He stood tall and lanky, with more length to him than mass. His skin was light, only properly colored at his knobby elbows and knees, and his hair grew in more brown than black. He had been a hunter for years, but not once had he made an exceptional kill nor earned a place among the Idess, the most skilled hunters of the clan. His thrust with the spear was average, but he had yet to even achieve that with his whip, and every man and woman within the clan knew it. There were children younger than him who could catch his ankle with their whip and pull it right out from under him--and they would too, if Meera wasn’t around.

By comparison, Meera stood short and thick, full of breast and with long, braided hair. She was beautifully dark, with eyes like the night sky and dimples that seemed ever present as her smile. She had earned her tattoos, lines of white dots across her brow and down beneath her eyes, for her growth into adulthood. She was the envy of every woman of the clan and the interest of every man, but she never seemed to notice. She was always too busy with Saul, teaching him the thrust or working on his swipe, or either she was in the fields with the Idess. She was only four years older than Saul, a woman of nineteen, but she had earned her place among the Idess at the age of sixteen, and since had earned the respect of even the most senior of its members. She had once tried to bring Saul along on one of their hunting trips, but he had botched an ambush on an Albino Lobo and had been so embarrassed he’d left prematurely.

The thought of it sent his gut twisting in shame, and he clenched his fists and drew his shoulders up around his neck.

This trip was supposed to change everything, but so far nothing was going according to plan. He had wanted to grow as a l’Cie, learning more of the mystical abilities granted by the fal’Cie, but so far he’d barely fought a battle that Meera had not finished for him.

“Saul, here,” Meera said, positioned at the edge of the cliff, the tower from his dreams crumbling against her back. She clipped her spear behind her, strapping it beneath the bright red wrap that hung from one shoulder and looped around her torso. She was smiling when he joined her at the ledge. “Down there is where we’ll find your mark, little brother. And then we’ll slay it and earn you a place among the Gods.”

Saul could not help but feel as though it was her who should be earning her place. He had done nothing but trod after her from the moment she’d discovered he’d approached the fal’Cie.

He had thought he could at least unravel the mystery of the focus that had claimed so many before him, but that had fallen to Meera as well. She had made him tell her of his focus, and while he had first refused her, after days passed without progress, he grew panicked and gave her everything in a fit of desperation. The tower, the door, the beast, the green mist--he’d told her all about his dreams, and she had laughed at him for making her wait so long, strapped on her worn sandals, and told him to allow her to hunt and think on what he’d said.

She’d left at dawn, and when she returned at dusk with a wing of a wyvern, she had smiled and said, “Follow me, little brother. The Goddess has given me wisdom.”

And now Meera was leading him down the side of a cliff, its edge jagged and rocky with too many footholds that looked ready to give. “Are you sure, Meera?” he asked, shifting from one foot to the other and looking down over the edge. It was a long way down, and he had never made a climb of this extent before.

“Do you doubt me brother?” she asked, but her tone was soft and she still smiled.

He dug his heels into the dirt. “I’m just not sure--” he began.

“Beneath the tower, right? That’s where you saw the doors isn’t it?”

He rolled his shoulder, glancing over the edge again. “Yes, but…” He searched for something to say, but there was nothing to be done. “You go first,” he said finally, crossing his arms over his chest.

She just laughed and dropped down to the ground, slipping over the ledge with ease. “Watch your step, brother. I’ll break us a path. You just keep close to the ledge and don’t let go, no matter what.” Then she disappeared over the edge.

Saul leaned over and watched her go, the glint of the late afternoon sun catching on her skin and opal necklaces. She looked so very sure-footed, scaling the ledge as though she knew every crag and hold, touching some but then finding others when they failed to pass her inspection. She made it look _easy_ , and Saul got all twisted up inside just looking at it. He dug his heels into the dust, resenting his sister and whatever god had made her so able and him so…

He tore his gaze away from his sister and stopped his train of thought. Things would be different once he met the mark, he was sure. He had only seen glimpses of it in his dreams, dark red eyes, gleaming fangs, but he was determined to be the one to slay it.

_I won’t let Meera help. This is my kill._

That thought filled him with determination. He wasn’t just Meera’s little brother. He was a l’Cie now, and he would prove himself to everyone, most of all to his clan.

“Alright, come down, brother!” She called to him from below, and when he looked back down, he was shocked to see her a good thirty feet lower than she’d been before.

“Coming!” he yelled back, steeling his nerves.

He slung his spear over his back, tucked it into the hide sash at his waist, and then started over the side. The rocks were hardly slick--it had not rained in weeks as far as he could tell--but the dryness made the soil loose. He paused at the edge, hesitating before starting down, but Meera called at him to hurry up and he swallowed his fear like vinegar and followed her down.

It was slow progress for him, and every time he looked down for Meera, he found her farther and farther below him. By the time she was halfway down, he had lagged behind a good seventy feet and sweat poured from his brow. His muscles ached and twice he had nearly lost his footing on an unsteady hold. He continued his descent, but his thoughts only made him feel weaker, his great determination draining from him with every passing moment.

“Meera,” he called, when he was sure they had been climbing forever. He dared not look down his arms shook so badly. “Meera!” he yelled again, panic choking him. “How much farther?”

From far below, he heard her response, echoed on the walls of the ravine. “Keep going, little brother! We’ve almost made it!” she hollered up, and though it took every ounce of his bravery, he eventually began to climb down once more.

The next time he managed to look below him, Meera was safely on the grounds below, and he took it as a sign that he would soon join her, but only moments later he nearly lost his hold and dropped from the cliff face. Saul let out a scream, clawed at the dirt and stone, and stood clutching a thick root for many minutes, trembling from exertion and fear. It took him much longer to begin down the wall again after that, but finally, _finally_ he felt solid ground beneath him.

He nearly collapsed against the wall, his arms and legs trembling with every breath he drew, but Meera simply swept him into her arms and hugged him tightly.

“You did it!” she told him, rubbing his back soothingly. “I knew you could, brother.”

Saul remembered the resentment he’d felt toward her earlier and hugged her back, burying his face in her sash. He shouldn’t have thought about her that way.

He shuffled out of her grasp, rubbing his sore biceps, and looked to the ground. “Where now?” he asked, not meeting her eyes.

“This way,” she told him, smiling.

Saul followed his sister along the ravine floor, rubbing his arms still and gazing up the sheer walls of the ravine. The formation itself was so unnatural. He hadn’t noticed from above, but it was almost like the ground here had been cleaved apart, the walls seemingly reached for one another as though to reconnect. And if he looked beyond his sister, the fissure suddenly knitted up, its walls converging just beyond the fallen tower high above.

“Was there an earthquake?” he asked.

“You must ignore everything old Johen says,” Meera told him, laughing.

Saul frowned. “Johen is a liar,” he said. “His stories are all just stories.”

Old Johen wasn’t called such for nothing. He was so old, many in the clan couldn’t remember him without wrinkles, and all of his teeth had fallen out, giving him a soft lisp whenever he tried to talk. And he talked _forever_.

“Not all of them,” Meera said, smiling. “He was the one who pointed me here.”

Saul looked at her suspiciously. “I thought you said the Goddess had gifted you with a vision.”

His sister just laughed. “Would you have come if I’d said old Johen had told me we’d find your mark here?”

He scowled. “You should have told me.” This was his Focus. It had been hard for him to swallow the Goddess helping Meera, but she had lied to him, and that tasted even worse. “How would he know about this place anyway?”

“This...” She motioned to the crumbling tower above them. “Is where Ragnarok jumped. And Johen--he was here when it happened. He said the ground split open and tower started crumbling the moment Ragnarok leapt.”

Saul floundered. “ _This_ is Taejin’s Tower?”

His sister just hummed and said, “And there’s the door.”

True enough, when Saul followed his sister’s gaze, he saw it. It was exactly as he’d seen: arched double doors made of stone, their surface inscribed with a circle of text he couldn’t read. There were roots that had broken through along the edges, but none seemed to be able to grow into the stone itself. He ran his hand across the surface, over the ridges that made the script, and pulled it away. Not even a speck of dust.

“There’s no handle,” he said. He gave one side an experimental shove, but all he ended up doing was pushing into stone that wouldn’t budge. He stood back, gripping his aching arms, and glanced over the stone once more. Then he turned to Meera. “How do we get in?”

She inspected the door herself, running her hand along the seam. Then she dropped a shoulder and drove it into the stone. There was a quick grinding sound, but the door barely gave an inch. She pushed a few more times, the opening widening with each smack of her skin against stone, and Saul felt a sudden gust of air as it was sucked through the crack.

He shivered. This was it. His mark was inside somewhere, he knew it. He glanced down at his brand, the black and red stark against the paleness of his palms.

“Meera,” he said.

She grunted, giving the door a final shove and then standing back to admire the narrow opening. He would slide through no problem, but Meera was thicker and would have to squeeze through.

“Alright, in you go,” she said. “Give us a light once we’re in there, brother.”

Saul hesitated a moment but then slid through the crack. Inside, the air was stale and pitch black greeted him. He had a moment of panic, that his mark might jump him then and there, but he summoned a small flame in his palm and the darkness retreated with his fears. It was empty, a stone corridor with plain walls and no end in sight. He cast the fire down the hallway, and it illuminated nearly twenty feet before it fell and fizzled out on the floor.

“See anything?” his sister asked, struggling through the opening as he lit another flame.

“Nothing.” Was his mark farther in? He pulled his spear off his back when he saw Meera do the same.

“Did you see this in your Focus? No? Hmph, guess we’ll find it eventually.”

She started down the hallway, and Saul hurried after her, making a point to walk just a hair in front of her. He wanted to tell her he was going to handle the mark by himself, that she wasn’t allowed to help him, that he could do it, but his words kept getting caught in his throat, and the only sound was their footsteps and the faint hiss of air as it squeezed through the door far behind them.  

They walked for so long even that disappeared, and it was just the flicker of the flame against the walls and the whisper of their shoes against the stone. It was then they came upon a staircase, winding and circular and leading straight down into the dark depths of Gran Pulse.

“Come on,” Meera said when Saul hesitated.

And down they went, so much that Saul forgot all about the declaration he was going to make to his sister. Instead, he began to see those ruby red eyes he’d seen in his dreams around every twist of the staircase. His palms grew sweaty and his heart thumped in his ears. He kept looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being crept up on, but how could they be? The path from the door to the stairs didn’t have anywhere for something to hide. It had to be farther in.

Down and down they went until finally, _finally_ they reached a landing. It was drenched in a faint, ethereal green light, and when they stepped out of the staircase, they knew why.

“What is that?” Saul asked. There was a soft buzz in his head. He let the fire in his hand extinguish and pressed his hand to his ear instead.

“Goddess,” Meera whispered.

The passage opened abruptly from the neat staircase and stone corridor they had already traversed. Suddenly the ceiling hung high above them and the walls stretched wide all around them. It was so big, great Titan could have laid down within the cavern and been comfortable, though he would not have been able to stand. From the ceiling, crystals of green glowed faintly, giving the whole place an unearthly glow.

In the center of the chasm, sculpted perfectly upon a grassy-- _grassy_ , even down here--hill was a perfectly circular dome of white stone. It was big, just like the rest of the chasm, and Saul and Meera could have stood on each other’s shoulders and only barely reached half its height.

“Atomos,” Saul breathed. It had to be the digging fal’Cie. “This is a prison.” But where was the prisoner?

Meera was quiet for a long moment. “The walls,” she said, looking around. “And the ceiling. It’s all jagged. Atomos’ tunnels are too smooth. And where’s the exit? He would have had to leave too.” She pulled Saul by the arm gently. “I don’t think this was made by Him.”

His sister pulled him along the wall, stepping carefully. She didn’t make a sound as she walked, and Saul did his best to imitate her, but his own footfalls were muffled by the thump of his heart and that ever present, ever growing sound. The closer they came to the temple upon the grassy hill in the light of the crystals, the more distinct the sound became.

“Meera,” he breathed. “Do you hear that?”

She gave him a glaring look for silence and then nodded quietly, leading him up the slope and to the temple’s walls.

The walls were marble, he realized as he pressed himself against them after his sister’s example. His eyes were everywhere but in front of him. The rim of the dome, high above, had thin engravings, and Saul recognized some of the shapes from the stone door they’d first entered.

When they came upon the entrance, Meera halted at the great marble archway that led within. The hissing was loud now, a steady in and out, like breaths of some great beast.

Meera stepped around first, her spear held ready. Then she motioned for Saul, and he followed her lead, his spear shaking in his grip. And inside they went, taking careful steps.

The temple was dark and full of shadows, a single circular room the size of a large house with black obsidian over every surface and deep engravings of serpents and chains cut perfectly into every wall. The ceiling was high enough for the light not to touch it, and the walls played tricks on the eyes. Saul nearly stabbed his reflection as it ghosted across the glossy surface, and even Meera looked ready to assault the image of herself moving at the edge of her sight.

“Be watchful,” she whispered.

The only light emanated from the center of the temple itself. Perfectly centered, a large plate of stone sat raised on a platform of obsidian steps, a thick slash right through its middle. The crack oozed a green haze which glowed faintly in the dark temple, rising only a few feet before dissipating into the air, and it gave the walls the same greenish hue.

Meera and Saul edged into the temple, Meera looking over her shoulder and high above her, but Saul keeping his sights trained on the green haze.

His hands had stopped shaking, and he made his way across the black temple floor and climbed the three short steps until he stood atop the stone plate, his spear loose in one hand. He had seen this in his dreams.

“Brother,” Meera hissed at him, but Saul could barely hear her over the sound of heavy, beastly breathing. It was loudest here at the center, and he bent down onto his hands and knees and pressed his ear to the crack, the green mist making his skin tingle and eyes water.

 _“L’Cie,”_ he heard, a whisper in the air. _“Free me.”_

_“Brother!”_

He raised his head at his sister’s scream, and before him the wall seemed move. It slid from the obsidian, as much a part of it as any of the other carvings. Through the gloom, he could see the green hue flicker across its scales, could feel its breath against his face; he found the pits of its eyes, red like rubies, red like _blood_ , and _screamed_.

Its jaws opened in a flash of fangs, and Saul tripped over himself and down the stairs in a mad scramble away from it.

 _My spear_ , he thought, full of dread as he scrambled across the floor. _I dropped my spear!_

The obsidian beast advanced, its scales scrapping hard against the floor, and reared back to strike, but another spear--his sister’s spear--came soaring through the air and sunk deep into its red eye.

The beast gave a scream and shook, and Saul ran, his eyes dead on Meera, illuminated in the dark by the shine of her great opal necklaces, her eyes.

“Here!” she called, waving her hand behind her, her sights set firmly ahead.

He stumbled past her and kept going, only stopping to look back when he’d nearly cleared the door.

Meera was bare-handed, and she slid around the snake’s strike, favoring its blind side. She was quick, quicker than he could ever be, and she danced across the obsidian floor toward his discarded spear.

It lunged and she rolled, and when she stood again, she had his spear clutched tightly in her hand. She pulled back and threw, and there was a crack, like the shattering of glass. The great black snake hissed and shook, two spears embedded deep into its eyes.

“Saul!” she called, edging away from the serpent. “I’ve blinded it! Your magic! Use your magic!”

But Saul could not move. He stood rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on the shape slithering from the wall behind Meera. It rose from the shadows, its red eyes the only thing he saw of it, and it raised up, its fangs flashing in the darkness.

“Meera,” Saul whispered.

The snake lunged, and then Meera was gone.

Saul turned and ran, and he did not look back.

**Author's Note:**

> A prologue of sorts for things to come.


End file.
